A/N There are several animals and plants mentioned in this one that are my own invention; if you want to check them out look for my essay Fauna and Flora of Pern

14 Mile High Murder

The logicators hoped to practice their skills on the new Rider transferred from Ista Weyr; but the swart Brown Rider K'shon was such an open book that logicating about him was a waste of time being too simple. He had been weyrbred from an early age, since his elder brother Impressed – being orphaned he had been in his brother's care – and was cheerfully enthusiastic. He also had ideas about improving Thread fighting efficiency, and D'ram, worried about his sick Weyrwoman, had been unable to cope with the lad. D'ram had suggested, not unkindly, that K'shon might like to try the High Reaches; and so the young rider had moved. He hit it off right away with Mirielle, D're's sister, waiting for Segrith's clutch; and soon the two were fairly inseparable. With radical ideas, it was inevitable that K'shon should cross H'llon's path; and from being an object of study he was, within days, ensconced firmly amongst the logicators, his cheerful, laid back Ista ways fitting in very well!

The loicators had been lounging around the Bowl in the cool of the morning, eating a picnic breakfast and catching up the newer members on old cases. Thread had fallen over Tillek just after dawn, and those logicators who had flown had assembled after bathing for a convivial natter.

The drum message thrummed across the valley; and most logicator heads tilted to one side to listen, all moving as one!

DDDDWeyr…..finders….help….urgent….death…please…..Mile High HoldDDDD

"Rotten Harper" said T'rin, scornfully.

"Too unevenly beaten to be a Harper – even an inept one" said T'lana, getting up. "Maybe the death is of the Harper. Who's going to go?"

"What did the drums say, then?" asked K'shon.

They stared at him.

T'lana grinned.

"Sorry K'shon. We tend to forget that not everyone knows the beats. Mile High Hold is asking for a logicator to help over a death."

"I'm not Ranking" he said with some asperity.

T'rin chuckled.

"T'lana's not either. Well, she is now, but she taught herself. That's why it's not giving away craft secrets to teach beyond what the Ranking learn."

"I'll go!" volunteered Sagarra.

"No" T'lana vetoed it; and Sagarra took it philosophically enough. "T'rin?"

"Sure. If it's a Harper dead, it's Harper business. Who's coming with me?"

"I will" said H'llon. "In case you need the authority of a Bronze Rider. Zaira? There ought to be a woman along in case…."

His weyrmate nodded smiling.

T'rin turned.

"F'lim, you'll acknowledge?"

The young Harper nodded and set off at a run for the drumheights. He could not resist beating the acknowledgement with the accomplished flourish of a more than competent drummer!

Mile High Hold was set on a plateau approximately a mile above sea level; hence its name. It lay just inside Nabol territory, and occupied the cliff face that soared over the plateau. Its rich alpine pastures that ran down the mountainside in terraces were given over mostly to the raising of ungulates of various kinds; bovines grazed the lower pastures and the fine plateau itself, and the tinkling of bells was melodious in the early morning air. Ovines and caprines leaped nimbly about above the Hold, tended by various children of Hold and cot. There were tended fields too on the plateau, if not enough for self sufficiency as least enough to reduce what had to be bought in. T'rin recalled that much of the wealth of the Hold came not just from farmed hide and hair, but from trappers and hunters who roamed the mountains, holing up during Fall in caves and bothies common to all. Most valuable was the warm thick fur of the big omnivorous grizzly. The local variety sported black fur; T'rin recalled reading in records he had copied for Master Arnor that the fur lightened as one travelled east, and the size of the beast diminished. The Benden Red Grizzly weighed in at less than 200lb; hunting the black was a dangerous task, for they could be more than twice the size of the Benden beasts! T'rin presumed that the trappers would also hunt loggers, prized for the waterproof nature of their fur. They would presumably also not refuse coneys and their larger relatives gontermorras. Hunters could be rough people; he was glad of the large presence of H'llon, and half regretted having brought Zaira, hoping she would not be subject to too much insult!

The two dragons had landed at some distance from the grazing animals, near the rocky edge of the plateau, giving the dragonmen some distance to walk.

A richly dressed man was waiting at the heavy double door of the Hold; he did not look pleased and the angry reddish purple cast of his face clashed rather horridly with his embroidered magenta shirt.

"Dragonriders" his tone was flat. "I am so sorry that you have been to the trouble of coming over nothing. A boyish prank on the part of my wife's young brother, nothing more."

T'rin raised an eyebrow.

H'llon frowned.

"Are you saying that there has been no death, then?"

The florid man opened and shut his mouth once or twice.

"Well – yes, there has. But there is no need to trouble the Weyr about it."

"It's no trouble at all" T'rin smiled serenely. "Why don't we take a look at the body now we're here, and you tell us everything you know about it?"

The Holder – his name, T'rin had checked, was Noboro – audibly ground his teeth.

"I said it's nothing" he gritted.

"Your goodbrother didn't agree" said H'llon, shrewdly. "And don't you also feel that if it WAS no more than a prank, we'd want to ascertain that in order to discipline him for bringing us out here on the fools' errand you say it is?"

Noboro almost snarled. It gave him enough of a look of Meron that a relationship became apparent; when Meron had retained the Holding of Nabol he had filled Holds around with his cronies and relatives as rewards for their support. It did not endear him to the visitors. They ignored his opposition, however, and walked blithely past him into the Hold's entrance Hall.

Hovering inside was a youth of some fourteen turns. Fingermarks were apparent on his face. H'llon's eyes narrowed.

The boy said,

"I'm NOT wasting your time! I'm not! He was murdered, I'm sure, and whatever I may have thought of him, it's not right and he has his Rights to be avenged!"

"And you are?" asked T'rin.

"Jarleth. My sister Orna is married to that ….to Noboro."

"And who is it who is dead?" asked H'llon.

"His name is Glasno. He's been staying here. He's – he was – a friend of Noboro's."

Three pairs of eyes swung to look at the Holder as he followed them reluctantly in.

"A friend? A friend whose death is nothing?" asked H'llon. "Curious."

Holder Noboro spoke from between clenched teeth.

"All right! I didn't want you nosing in and intruding on my personal grief! You understand? It's obvious what happened. I have to live with that. Why can't you leave me to my grief?"

"Well if it's so obvious, why not tell us?" asked Zaira.

Noboro seemed almost to ignore her; he seemed oblivious to her question. H'llon snapped,

"Answer the weyrwoman!"

Noboro looked unsuccessfully for knots; Zaira was wearing none. It was a deliberate ambiguity she and H'llon sometimes used. Three firelizards hissing and trilling on her shoulders in time to H'llon's own four and T'rin's little white Prism made a sufficient impression however; few even Ranking people had one firelizard, let alone the multitude Zaira and H'llon owned between them!

Noboro said sulkily,

"Glasno must have got himself drunk in the Rowdy Room. It's a bad time of year for hunting, pelts are thin. Most of the men are about the Hold. He must have got himself into a brawl. He was found this morning by my steward with a broken neck."

T'rin itched to ask if it were Glasno or the steward with a broken neck to point out the poor grammatical construction; but resisted the temptation.

"That's an awful lot of assumptions leading to 'must haves'" he said. "It does not seem so obvious after all. We'll see the body" he added crisply "And we'll speak to your steward as the first of the potential witnesses. Has your lady been laying out the body?"

"I laid it out myself" said Noboro. "He was my friend, I've prepared him for the farewell ceremony."

"Orna wouldn't touch him" put in Jarleth. Noboro shot him a fulminating look.

"And we were waiting for you to show us the body" said Zaira, coldly. She tapped her little foot on the stone floor as if with impatience.

Noboro glared.

"I don't see what business it is of yours" he muttered. "I should order you out of my Hold."

"T'rin, did you want to nip and get Lord Deckter to clear this up?" asked Zaira. "You and Renpeth can be in Nabol and back almost before you leave if Holder Noboro wants our authority confirmed."

Noboro ground his teeth together.

"That won't be necessary" he managed. "Come this way" he almost minced off angrily.

T'rin muttered to H'llon,

"If we came THAT way we'd be chased by all the Green Riders in the Weyr!"

H'llon stifled a snort of laughter. He was by no means as naïve as he had been when first he came to the Weyr!

The body was laid out carefully and flowers lay around it, cultivated flowers that had been developed during the Long Interval as well as sweet herbs. Cup-and-saucer flowers were there in abundance; they also grew in great profusion just outside the Hold, T'rin recalled, carefully and enthusiastically tended, the waxy 'saucer' of sepals in a variety of pastel colours, not just the natural white, and the cup-shaped flower many shades of pink and red, and all the varieties larger flowered than the wild meadow flower that had developed the waxy sepals to enclose the flower head safely during Threadfall. In addition to the sweetly scented herbs there were sweetcandles, scented with some sickly fragrance strong enough to drown out the pleasant, subtle scents of lavender, balm and thyme. T'rin bit back an oath of disgust.

The dead man had been almost pretty in life; and the broken neck was unaccompanied by strangulation to spoil his looks by the inevitable changes of asphyxiation. His immaculate long locks were neatly combed and tied back. His hands were fine and delicate, with carefully manicured nails. A brief check showed that his feet were as well cared for too. He smelled faintly of sweet oil.

H'llon and T'rin exchanged glances.

"Zaira, why don't you go with Holder Noboro and go to find his wife?" said H'llon. "I'm sure she'd be glad of the presence of a woman in the circumstances."

Zaira shot him a look; but smiled winsomely at the Holder and rather pointedly took his arm.

He had little choice but to offer his escort.

As soon as he was out of the room, the two young men pulled away the rose-coloured covering and flipped the stiffened body over.

A quick examination revealed quite a lot.

"Dead – what, more than four hours too, probably longer" muttered T'rin "And laid neatly on his back after the deed – see where the blood has drained to and pooled in his buttocks, shoulders and thighs."

"He's almost fully stiff, but it's not starting to go off yet" said H'llon, checking the jaw "So no more than twelve hours….it's so variable, unfortunately. Shouls we guess around midnight?"

"It's cool in a stone Hold….could have been earlier, I'd not like to guess. What do you think of the drunken brawl suggestion?"

"This pretty boy?" H'llon's tone was disbelief, but he bent down to sniff the young man's mouth as they rearranged him. "There's the faintest whiff of wine on his breath, no more" he added.

T'rin grinned.

"Pity Master Robinton isn't here; he'd probably tell you where it was bottled and the vintage. Yes, I thought his perfume was heavier than wine or ale fumes."

"As to brawling, we'd have found bruises to back that story up. There are no contusions; no cuts. The only apparent bruising is the lividity. His neck seems to have been broken cleanly, with a small external mark" H'llon examined the hands again, this time using the logicator magnifying glass. "No hair or skin under the nails to betray an attacker….he didn't get the opportunity to claw at anyone. There's…..ah!" he examined a tiny, golden brown flake he had extracted. "Varnish, I'll wager" he said. "He sat in a chair with arms and grasped them convulsively as he died. Look, the other hand – tiny, almost imperceptible cuts now he's been washed and no blood flows; and here!" he excitedly pulled out a sliver of glass from a fold of skin. "He held a wine glass, and crushed it in spasm as he died! It's easy to break a man's neck from behind as he sits; I reckon even a woman or a tall child could do it."

There was a cry from the doorway.

"Are you accusing my sister? Or me?"

H'llon fixed Jarleth with a stern look.

"Young man, nobody's accusing anyone yet. But you drummed us in to get the truth; and that it is up to us to find out. We shall follow the facts docilely wherever they lead us!"

"Orna wouldn't do it. And I swear I didn't, ask your dragons – they can tell truth, can't they?"

"Lad, as to your innocence, I don't think you're a fool; and only a fool would call us in when covering it up seems to be the accepted way of things. As to your sister, well you did say she wouldn't touch him. You implied a dislike for him. Do you now deny that?"

"She HATED him! But she'd never kill anyone! Believe it!"

"Why did she hate him?" asked T'rin.

"Dunno. Well, I mean he was – slimy, if you know what I mean. And always fawning on Noboro like the spit hounds do on the cook. And he patted me on the head. YEUK!" he made a rude noise. "The serving drudges cordially detested him. He, like, lorded it over them, like he though he was of the Blood or someone special; but he wasn't. He wasn't even an apprentice in anything, let alone a journeyman or someone skilled; I heard it said he was a caprine herder. Which is a useful enough occupation, but…..you know in stories about girls wed above their station and how they treat drudges? He was like that."

T'rin nodded.

"Why did you call us in?"

"Well…. I suppose I felt a bit sorry for him. Because no-one liked him. And Noboro had asked him to go. They had a row. I heard some of it. I – I supposed he'd been killed by someone who didn't know he'd be leaving."

"He agreed to go then?"

"Well, he must have done, mustn't he? Noboro is the Holder. What he says, goes" said the boy reasonably.

"Look" said H'llon "If we're to get the truth, we need to talk to people. Can you fetch the steward, the Harper, if you have one, and….and the chief trapper?"

The boy nodded; and ran off.

H'llon turned to T'rin.

"I've learned enough since I've had more, er, exposure to a wider range of people to recognise certain relationships" he said. "The idea of Glasno 'fawning on' Noboro and the boy describing him like a woman married above her station allied with the unusual circumstance of a man laying out his friend – and so effeminately – suggests that they were lovers. Correct?"

T'rin nodded.

"And the physical signs we saw proves Glasno's preference at least, which is also suggestive. I concur. And jealousy is a common motive for murder. Is that why you wanted the boy out? To suggest his sister's motive?"

H'llon nodded.

"But it might have been jealousy on Noboro's part. If Glasno had another lover, say. Maybe that's what they rowed over and Noboro told him to leave as the lover spurned. Or the boy misheard and he said that some third party must leave. Or maybe Noboro is trying to mend bridges with his wife and Glasno threatened to tell her about their illicit relationship. Lots of possibilities."

"He's so angry!" said T'rin.

"And at whom?" asked H'llon.

"Jarleth – for calling in outsiders; and us for being outsiders. He really is afraid of a scandal I think. And he seems to be full of grief, that laying out was done with loving care."

"If he didn't do it, it could be that he knows or suspects who did; shells, he might be promiscuous and has other male lovers any one of whom might have killed the current favourite in pique or jealously. Or because they thought Glasno was bad for Noboro. Or whatever" H'llon shrugged. "We're playing 'what if'. We need to talk to more people to get a broader picture. If we can't get anywhere with the ones we're waiting for, I suggest you go butter up the Hold Aunties. Not much will pass them by I wager!"

"Heh, no bet taken!" said T'rin.

The dragonriders returned to an anteroom to await the people they had sent Jarleth to search for.

The Steward, Sibroc, arrived first, a tall austere man whose general demeanour suggested that an unpleasant smell sat a few inches below his nose.

T'rin gave him a brief smile.

"Please be seated" he said. "I understand that it was you who found the body?"

The supercilious look cracked a little to let out definite nervousness; the man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as though to wipe out the unpleasant taste of fear.

"I – yes, that is correct."

"Can you tell us exactly where it was – and how it was lying? And how you came to find it?"

The Steward swallowed.

"There – there are stairs up from the common quarters to the family apartments, which was where Glasno was staying – in a family guest room. To the left at the bottom of the stairs are the kitchens and the – we call it the Rowdy Room. Where the trappers drink and let off steam. There are women there" he added apologetically, as though he expected them to be shocked. "To the right the sleeping quarters, male, female and married quarters, and dormitories for children. The body was on a half landing at the bend of the stairs. It looked peaceful; at first I thought he was asleep."

"Are those stairs well used?"

"Oh yes, we don't have a second flight for drudges and children like larger Holds do. Drudges and so on are up and down it all the time. People seeing the Holder on business, paying beholden rents on cots on his lands, things like that."

"At night?" put in H'llon.

Sibroc shrugged.

"No. After sundown the family has retired; personal drudges have quarters close to them. It'd not be used 'til dawn."

"So a body could easily lay there all night and you'd not expect anyone to find it."

"Yes, that's what must have happened. He must have slipped and fallen running up the stairs, a total accident."

"So many people tell us what 'must have' happened I'm starting to dislike the phrase intensely" growled H'llon.

"Tell me, Sibroc" said T'rin "Did Glasno commonly go down in the evening to spend time with the trappers and other men? And was he often late up to bed if so?"

Sibroc's features crumpled. H'llon had been thinking him to resemble a rather well bred llama; suddenly he looked more like a frightened coney as a wherry stooped.

"I – I don't know!" he almost squeaked. "I never took note of his habits!"

H'llon sat forward and rumbled ominously.

"Don't lie!" he thundered, his four firelizards scolding in unison to back him up.

Sibroc blenched.

"I don't think…. I didn't know him well. I never kept tabs on him. I never did it!"

H'llon grunted irritably,

"Did anyone say you did? Speak up man, if you're innocent, you've nothing to fear!"

Sibroc gibbered.

T'rin said,

"You should, I think, consider that your reactions look suspicious. What are you afraid of? Glasno catch you cheating the Holder?"

They could get no coherent answer; though there appeared to be vehement denials of cheating the Hold.

T'rin switched back to ask more about the body.

"You said you thought he was asleep. Why?"

Sibroc gulped and pulled himself a little more together.

"He was on his back. Just lying. Like – like he'd been laid out. I went to rouse him and his head….it lolled…" he gagged, and had to take several deep breaths. "He was so cold….i knew he was dead. I went straight away to tell Holder Noboro."

T'rin nodded dismissal and Sibroc thankfully escaped.

The young Harper's hearing was acute.

He heard the Steward whisper,

"If any of you lot killed Glasno, for shell's sake be careful. There's a Harper-Rider in there and his tame grizzly wearing Bronze knots."

There was an answering grunt; and a burly man came in. He was good looking in a rather rugged way with light bright blue eyes in a weatherbeaten face, surrounded by small lines partly of laughter and partly from screwing up his eyes against the glare off snow, that even with coloured glass goggles could be extreme.

He nodded casually.

"Deev. Chief trapper. That gibbering idiot Sibroc seems to think one of my boys bumped the poof" he said laconically.

T'rin raised an eyebrow.

"You would appear to assess, by your choice of words, that the dead man was….shall we say, effeminate to an extreme degree?"

"Too fardlin' right he was, and no need to wrap it up in Harper crack-jaw either! Creepy little sod! Meaning no offence….you being a Blue Rider…." The man broke off, looking embarrassed.

T'rin shrugged.

"As it happens I prefer women. But we do look on such things differently in the Weyrs. You do realise though, don't you, that I have to ask if any of your men might take sufficient offence at his, um, predilections to have been….hasty, leading to an accidental death?"

Deev roared with laughter.

"Naaah! He'd not go near my boys! Little caprine tried eyeing me up when he first came here, and I hung one on him! I told him, if he irritated me or my lads again, I'd spoil his pretty face for him! Reckon he believed me too" he added with a grin. "Reckon his business is his business and if he don't force it on others, I don't take offence; but he looked at people creepy, see? That's why I hit him right off, make sure he understood the score."

T'rin nodded.

"You didn't have any trouble from Holder Noboro for hitting and threatening his …..friend?"

"Naaah! We're his wealth, isn't it? Him, he wants to enjoy the fruits of our labour, even if he can't get any fruits of his own loins to pass it to" he paused "Though I heard tell his lady is finally breedin'. Dunno. Maybe he paid one of my boys to boff her" he shrugged nonchalantly. "Whatever."

"Do you have any idea who might have killed Glasno?"

Deev laughed again.

"Coulda bin anyone. Even our poncey Steward. Scared, ain't he? Reckons he'll be the easy scapegoat because he found the body I bet."

"I'd be much obliged" said T'rin "If you'd ask your men if they saw Glasno last night; or if indeed they saw anyone lurking on or near the half landing."

"Lurking, is it? Good-oh!" agreed the trapper. "Y'all done with me, isn't it? See yuh!" he added as T'rin nodded, and went off whistling rather macabrely a popular song about a murder in past times. T'rin knew the ballad, it involved a greedy man who killed his poor lover to whom he had contracted a secret espousal in order to marry a wealthy woman. He wondered if there was any message in it!

"Neat explanation of Sibroc's fear" said H'llon. "I guess we tend to forget that as soon as things go wrong a lot of people go to pieces."

"Yes" said T'rin. "And if he thinks that he might be made a scapegoat he has good reason to fear. This Deev strikes me as a pretty genuine fellow. What do you think?"

"Either that or he's a remarkably good actor. I don't think he told us any lies. I'd not answer for him not having told us everything."

"Yes, I thought there might be something he was holding back on" said T'rin "He talked a lot without saying that much really."

"He could care less that Glasno is dead; and doesn't trouble to hide it. I am certain that he believes that none of the trappers did it; and I don't think he did it either. Where's that Harper?"

"I don't know" said T'rin in irritation. "And where's that boy Jarleth? He was supposed to get all three."

"I'm here" Jarleth put his head round the door. "Torrilinel isn't up yet."

"Not up yet? Why ever not?" asked H'llon surprised. "Is he sick? It's four hours after dawn already!"

Jarleth quirked an eyebrow and mimed draining a glass, making realistic glugging noises.

"Is this a usual state of affairs?" asked T'rin disapprovingly.

"Oh yes" said Jarleth. "He usually sobers up long enough to get drunk again. He's not much of a Harper I'm afraid, his voice is wine thinned and his favourite instrument is the tink of bottle on glass."

"And a fine observer HE'd be" T'rin grunted.

"I helped to put him to bed last night" the boy volunteered. "If he got up for the Necessary and saw anything, it's fifty marks to a bag of crackdust he'd not remember it anyways."

T'rin was a Harper.

His swearing was fluid and imaginative and very articulate. It covered the antecedents, parentage and further ancestry of the unfortunate Torrilinel, together with his habits, cleanliness, sexual proclivities and future survival.

"In other words" said H'llon, as T'rin ran out of swear words, "Even if he did see anything he couldn't distinguish between that and the pink tunnel snakes crawling up the walls."

"Fish" said the boy.

"Pardon?" said H'llon.

"He sees fish. Swimming though the air. Big spiny ones with teeth."

"Hmmph" said H'llon. "I don't think we'll even bother to speak to HIM!"

Zaira slid into the room, smiling with grim satisfaction; though there was a look of tightly controlled disgust in her eyes. She came over to H'llon and slipped a hand into his.

"Did she open up?"

"Like boxflower after Fall's over. Once I got rid of Noboro" said the girl.

"How did you do that?" asked T'rin curiously.

Zaira gave a wicked little chuckle.

"Lady Orna is pregnant" she said. "I can recognise the signs. So I got technical and very, very graphic. Like most men he fled."

H'llon blushed.

"You don't need to tell us any more" he said hastily.

"And?" T'rin asked.

"Noboro" said Zaira with distaste "Is quite loathsome. That his tastes run to other men is, well, understandable and not his fault. That he had Glasno in the same bed with Orna to excite him and moved from being inside him to inside her is frankly repellent."

"It's unhygienic!" declared H'llon pulling a face of distaste.

"Precisely" said Zaira. "S'net and S'negen are always careful about being with either B'kas or Geriana….girl talk" she added hastily as H'llon looked outraged that she would know the private details of other people's love life. "I asked, all right? I was worried she might catch something to spoil her chances of Impression, the time she was standing…anyway, Lady Orna HAS had some nasty infections. But now she's pregnant she's hoping it's a boy so he'll leave her alone. She detests both of them, by the way."

"Do you think she did it?" asked T'rin bluntly.

Zaira shook her head.

"I spoke to her personal drudge, a nice girl, not too bright but quite capable. Orna's having a bad pregnancy. She was being sick every evening and went to bed with some fellis. Meeva adores her mistress; but I didn't let on why I was asking. I made it like I was just sympathetic about how ill Orna is; which wasn't hard because I am."

"Good work" said H'llon, hugging her comfortingly. He knew how much more shocked she really was than she was letting on!

Jarleth was staring, trying to collect himself on hearing this news.

"So THAT's why she hates him so? BASTARD! I'll kill him!"

"No you won't lad" H'llon caught the boy's arm as he made to run off. "He'll get his desserts. You'll see."

"How?" the boy was sceptical.

"You've not worked it all out? Maybe not. T'rin?"

T'rin nodded.

"Glasno was a tool for Noboro to get the heir he desires but can't sire without extra…..stimulation. his wife is now pregnant. Several months gone, or Zaira would maybe not notice. Enough to be certain there won't be an early miscarriage. He can send Glasno away. There's been a quarrel. Maybe Glasno was getting more demanding; maybe he just didn't want to lose a cushy number and threatened to create a stink of scandal if Noboro didn't keep him on. Noboro probably reluctantly agreed. Glasno felt triumphant. But Noboro was uncomfortable. Suppose Glasno should talk anyway? So he got him sat comfortably in a chair with a glass of wine. When we find which room has a varnished chair with arms, we can look for the shards of glass where it shattered in Glasno's death spasm when Noboro came behind him and broke his neck."

"Varnished chair? With arms? That's in Noboro's private sitting room. How can you know that?" asked Jarleth.

"Glasno told us how he gripped it in cadaveric spasm. As he gripped and crushed a wine glass with the other. But you see, Noboro had in a way loved Glasno. He could not bear to kill him in a way that would disfigure him. And as a final act of perverted loyalty he put his lover's body on the stairs 'as though he was laid out' as Sibroc described it."

"A pretty story" Noboro's voice sneered from the doorway. "Harpers are known for their pretty stories; and there are plenty left who believe that they sing lies and can't resist embellishment at the very least. Who do you think would believe such a fantasy?"

T'rin looked at him gravely.

"The evidence is there, Noboro. It has been seen by a Bronze Rider. Are you saying that Lord Deckter will doubt his sworn word, or indeed the sworn word of any dragonman?"

"Evidence? What evidence?"

"You heard the story. Every corpse tells its own story. The varnish from YOUR chair and the glass of YOUR wine glass are on his hands. You have due cause and motive."

Noboro screamed like a trapped coney; and drew a knife.

"Then the Bronze Rider must not testify!" he screamed.

H'llon paused; assessed; and kicked the Holder in the knee. He stumbled, not expecting so childish a tactic; and Zaira, forgotten by the Holder, brought a heavy chair down upon his head from behind.

Noboro fell heavily.

"You broke it!" accused H'llon, for one of the legs had flown off.

"Better a chair than my chairmaker" retorted Zaira. "Besides, it wouldn't have broken if it had been made properly. His head's not that hard."

Lord Deckter was not appreciative of his relative's behaviour.

"You'll be beginning to think we're all violent perverts in Nabol" he grumbled.

H'llon shrugged.

"You are kind enough to give trust to the logicators to find and weed out bad people" he said. "Naturally we see the worst ones. Please don't think that we in any way feel that they in any way reflect normal people."

"I'm glad you feel that way" said Deckter, relaxing slightly.

"We've seen all sorts. All over" shrugged H'llon. "Good as well as bad. And by the way, I'd like to steal the boy Jarleth as a candidate."

"It's an honour for the boy; I wish him luck" said Deckter. "Thanks again, Bronze Rider."

Lord Deckter spoke to Orna; he had no prejudices against female Holders.

Orna had her own ideas.

"My Lord" she said, her eyes cast down "I have a confession of my own."

"Indeed?" Deckter looked uncomfortable.

"Yes, My Lord. Since the only way to stop the terrible humiliation and degradation of my husband's efforts to get me with child, I determined to become pregnant by – by another source" she looked. "I committed adultery, My Lord. This child is NOT of my husband's Blood."

"Hmm" said Deckter. "Clever. Frankly, I don't care that much about the Blood. And you are related to the Blood anyhow, if anyone should care. Tell me about the fella you picked; you needn't marry him if you'd rather not, but if you want to, you have my blessing."

She flushed.

"He's rather….uncouth; but he's honest and kind. He understood. And not one rumour about it has escaped his lips – even to the dragonriders."

Deckter slapped his knee.

"Bless me, it's that fello Deev!" he cried.

She looked down.

"Well, girl, if I make him Holder, will you wed him?"

She looked up, her cheeks stained.

"With all my heart, Lord."

T'rin was impressed that the man had let no hint of his feelings for his Lady escape; for when he, H'llon and Zaira visited for the wedding it was plain by his tender treatment that he adored his bride!

"Hmm" said H'llon. "Both possible assessments I made are correct. An honest man – and a clever actor. A rare combination. I wager his children will either Impress or be Harpers."

"And a master stroke to suggest that Noboro got someone else to get her pregnant" added Zaira. "If there had been gossip after the birth, the dragonriders could be relied on to remember that the suggestion had been made."

"And a brave man too" said T'rin. "For he covered for his lady as well as for himself in that bold unconcern."

"He'll make a good Holder" said H'llon; and raised his glass in a toast to Deev. The new Holder raised his own, with an unrepentant grin.

T'rin said later to the logicators,

"Lord Bargen would not have sorted it that way."

T'lana smiled.

"Lord Bargen isn't as flexible as Deckter; he's older, and he's more entrenched in custom to try to avoid another Fax."

"Lord Deckter is clever" opined H'llon.

"Lord Bargen's not stupid!" M'gol put in.

"No, but he's not exactly overburdened with brains, is he?" argued T'lana. "He's attained his Right, and doesn't want to jeopardise the position he won so hardly. He doesn't have to be clever; Lords Holder, like Bronze Riders, don't need brains. Only integrity" and as all the Bronze Riders of her acquaintance opened their mouths indignantly to refute her imputations on their intellect she added "It's why they keep Stewards; or in the case of Bronze Riders, weyrwomen."

T'lana disappeared under a pile of thrown pillows and cushions!